My family tree has exceedingly stunted branches - one boozy, Irish and Catholic, the other teetotal, English and tepidly Protestant. Childhood Christmases were therefore a muddle of Orange and Green attempts at festivity, neither of which were much fun. My worst Christmas was NOT the one at which I was served a slice of my own finger after impetuously reaching for a piece of turkey while it was being carved.

Writing this posting has involved a struggle with a ghastly, long-suppressed childhood memory: the obligation to write, on our return to primary school after the Christmas holidays, an essay on "What I Did in the Christmas Holidays". All around me my classmates propped sunburned forearms on their desks, licked their Black Beauty pencils, and scribbled happily with effortless Total Holiday Recall, while I sat paralysed by Complete Holiday Amnesia. The little I remembered was too shabby or too shameful to reveal and so I wrote accounts of purely imaginary holidays.

Holidays which didn't involve boredom, tears, divided loyalties or a father who blundered into stationery objects when he'd had too much to drink. These lying essays were probably my first formal forays into a genre which now has a respectable name: creative non-fiction.

The first time I deposited my young daughter into the arms of a shopping mall Santa she screamed blue murder. I remember a similar moment from my own childhood.

Sitting on the lap of the Kirkcaldie and Stains’ Santa, I was visited by a sudden, deeply disquieting realisation: I was looking into the face of a mask and the eyes of an unknown man were staring at me from behind the fake beard.

It’s clear that the child who has not been indoctrinated into the Santa cult recoils instinctively from the figure in the red suit. Inspired by the child’s innocent act of repudiation I have come up with a radical solution to the horrors of Christmas.

But, before I share my idea, I need to expose the origins and extent of the malign effects of the Santa myth on our national psyche.

THE GREY URBANISTRo Cambridge, is a freelance writer, radio show host, arts worker & columnist reports on the oddities & serendipities of urban life. She roams Nelson city with a tan & white Jack Russell. Pete, her original canine side-kick features in many of these pieces, but died in April 2015.